My friends know I prioritize improving the lives of women in the USA. But, on a recent trip to Nicaragua I again felt that common bond, and common need for change, with women and friends elsewhere. YES this post ends with a suggestion to donate.
I sat, along with husband John and new friend Tyra, in a small room of the Acahualt Women’s Center, at first just grateful for the relative cool. Back home in Minnesota, that January day, it was well below freezing – but here in Managua it was, as usual, around 90 degrees. John and I had been here for nine days birding, stupefied at Nicaragua’s natural beauty and well aware of our privilege to enjoy it. Today, I needed to learn a tiny bit about the Nicaragua social justice work supported by my new friends, the Quakers. I had been an attender at the Twin Cities (Minnesota) Friends Meeting for two years, glad for the quiet meditation time and the caring community. (Photo: me, nurse Silvia Cisneros, friend Tyra)
Thank goodness for AWC nurse Silvia Cisneros, who put together lots of information – good data, lists of services, and “real people” photos – in Powerpoint form so I could get the big picture quickly (once I cooled off). And thank goodness for Ramon Sepulveda, co-director of the ProNica organization, who kindly arranged, shepherded, and translated for me with my poor Spanish. The Acahualt Women’s Center was built in Managua’s poorest neighborhood, where hundreds of people used to live in, and survive by picking through, the city dump. Now there’s a big recycling center, which provides jobs for about 20 percent of the people who used to live in the dump – but the other 80 percent remain desperately poor, even with some basic supports provided by the government. Nicaragua has the lowest per capita GDP of any Central American country – $4,500 per year. And for women in this area, emotional, physical, and sexual violence are common, even more so for LGBT people and the many who have been trafficked as sex slaves.
In 1992, five women founded the center, identifying a high incidence of cervical cancer, conducting a community diagnosis, and analyzing the findings. They contacted medical doctors and other professionals to look for treatment and develop the program further. Through rigorous research the cancer was linked to life in the heavily polluted dump. With minimal funds, medical and social services staff began to help with treatment and prevention, and soon were able to provide other life-saving services, also desperately needed: low cost medical care, legal aid, psychological therapy, sexual health education, job training, self help groups and workshops, a community preschool and library, and hopes of completing a shelter for women and children who have survived violence. The center is also home to job training via a beauty school, solely supported by ProNica.
Besides this visit to the center, Ramon introduced us to Quaker House, a lovely small building where 18 visitors (often a delegation there to learn and witness the work) can stay, and a quiet outdoor patio for meetings for worship. I loved the peace pole with its traditional message in Miskito and Mayan as well as English and Spanish. He also showed us the tiny office building housing ProNica staff – besides himself, co-director Ada Maria Lopez Rivera and bookkeeper Milton. At all three places, I was struck by the obvious (and probably necessary) commitment to “keeping it simple.” (photo: me, Ramon Sepulveda, Tyra)
In Minnesota, where we pride ourselves on a large “nonprofit community,” I worry sometimes that we have created maybe too much infrastructure. Nonprofit staff seem to be constantly attending webinars and conferences, often far away, with budgets for staff development and protecting boards of directors from legal action, and managers work hard to pay “competitive” salaries. In Nicaragua, I think ProNica has wisely helped with basic administration and fundraising for multiple groups, but relies on local grassroots efforts – like that at the Women’s Center – to decide what needs to be done and how to do it. Both ProNica and the Acahualt Women’s Center could certainly use your donation as well as mine, as funds from Spain have declined with the problems of the EU, with little to no support from the Nicaraguan government or groups like the United Nations. Fewer services are offered right now, and some women’s center staff have had to cut back their hours, taking up additional outside jobs for family survival. I promise you that small contributions will be used for the greater good, not for anything that might look like a “perk” to us. They give examples of $5 for a potentially life-saving pap smear for one woman, $75 for a tubal ligation, or $450 for a clinic nurse for one month.
How to tell this story, I wondered, as a privileged white person? If you’re like me, you see plenty of sad stories and hear of many great needs. I can only say I felt that tentative reaching out, heart-to-heart, when Tyra and I (the two of us not sharing a language) sat in the back seat of the pickup together and used broken words and sign language to ask about each other’s kids. I felt it again when I was all full of delicious lunch and almost considering a nap – but Ada took time to carefully explain the many programs especially for women that ProNica is supporting, including in rural areas, making sure we know there is so much we would not be able to see that day but that needs attention. And Silvia, especially, who decided to trust that we could handle photos of horrific injuries inflicted on some of the women they see, not usually included in the Powerpoint – and whose love was evident in her computer’s wallpaper photo of her granddaughter, a shining face and big red hair bow that could be Nicaragua’s future. I am learning from Quakers to listen with my heart as well as my head, and I am deeply grateful for all these smart hard workers who know how to lead both ways.
You can learn more and donate to ProNica, the Acahualt Women’s Center, and/or other ProNica supported programs in Nicaragua, and subscribe to the ProNica newsletter, via this link.
